Friday, April 22, 2011

I used my super-awesome mask that I created for a masquerade dance I went to last year. It is modeled after Audrey's in How To Steal a Million. Oh yes.

Although the mask is really unnecessary because even without it, no one would be able to recognize that I am a human form. Apparently, my SERIOUSLY junky webcam is even worse at 11:30 pm with no lighting! WHO KNEW?!

Anyway, PFF is an awesomely cool partyish thing that Kate started a few months ago. I've been meaning to do it for a while, but usually on Fridays I'm either gone or lying comatose in my bed watching movies all night (usually the latter). Not conducive for PFF.

So, here we are. Except it's not really a posh frock. It's an outfit I would/have worn to school. So yeah. BUT STILL.

Oh, yeah. And I had to take different shots to semi-capture the whole outfit. IT WAS AN EXHAUSTING PROCESS! ;-D

^My favorite blue sweater from Old Navy. MOST comfortable thing ever. And I wear it with everything, because clearly bright blue does not clash with any other color.

^I LOVE this dress. It's from my sister (an awesome reason to have older sisters...;-D) and it's so loverly!

^I wear black leggings with basically everything (Washington is not exactly warm. Ever.) AND MY BELOVED TOMS! I have a few pairs of TOMS, but these are my favorites. I got them six months after the company started and they are very worn and have some serious holes in them. BUT IT'S ALL COOL.

^I love this locket. I bought it at an estate sale and It's just very interesting and happy! (And I seriously need to figure out a photo to put inside! An old movie star? haha)

Okay, that was a glimpse at The Millie through a grainy, poorly constructed webcam. Next time I participate it will be MUCH better (or probably not -- considering my usual empty promises...;-D). But, thanks ever so Kate for the absolutely brilliant idea (and I ADORE looking at your outfits every week!)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

I saw this over at Cinema Fanatic (you should definitely go check out her awesomely interesting list) and my first thought was OH! I MUST DO THIS! My second thought: Is this wise, Millie? Surely you haven't forgotten the months of poor health that proceeded your list of 20 Favorite Hitchcock films?

(Note: I talk to myself with Charles Boyer's voice. I'm not even lying. Milleh, Milleh? Where is the brooch?)

Anyway. After MUCH mental anguish and careful deliberation, I decided to make a list. I decided to take the hundreds of thousands of utterly brilliant films and limit them to just 26. It has been painful.

The idea with this list of A - Z movies is to define myself through film. These are not necessarily the 26 movies that I consider to be the greatest, or even necessarily my 26 absolute favorites (I have 378, 253 absolute favorites, so...), they are 26 films that give you an idea about who I am. AND, apparentally, I am almost completely defined by films beginning with the letters L, M, H, and T (I'm so sorry The Lost Weekend, TheMoon-Spinners, The More The Merrier, Mr. and Mrs. Smith ('41), His Girl Friday, To Be Or Not To Be, That Funny Feeling....).

This hopefully should be interesting.

A - The Awful Truth (1937)

B - Barefoot in the Park (1967)

C - Can't Help Singing (1944)

D - Dial M For Murder (1955)

E - East of Eden (1955)

F - Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

G - Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)

H - How To Steal a Million (1966)

I - It Happened One Night (1934)

J - Jamaica Inn (1939)

K - Kiss Me Kate (1953)

L - Laura (1944)

M - Meet John Doe (1941)

N - Notorious (1946)

O - One, Two, Three (1961)

P - Persuasion (2007)

Q - The Quiet American (1958)

R - Road to Morocco (1942)

S - Shadow Of A Doubt (1943)

T - The Third Man (1949)

U - The Uninvited (1944)

V - Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953)

W - The Women (1939)

X - X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963)

Y - A Yank in the RAF (1941)

Z - The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Well, there it is. IT SERIOUSLY PAINED ME. It pained me even more than the Hitchcock list. I KNOW I FORGOT (and in some cases was FORCIBLY FORCED to leave off) so many absolute favorites. IT'S KILLING ME.

Okay. I'll just leave this be (it's been waiting to be published for over a week now)....and go wander off to get list-maker's regret. ;-D

Friday, April 15, 2011

This was SUPPOSED to be posted yesterday....but, well, I actually was responsible and studied for a test instead (it ended up being ridiculously easy-- which I am afraid will make me revert back to non-studying forever).

Bradford Dillman. The evil smile is 81. (Seriously. I bet he was smiling evilly even as a small infant.)

{The age of the evil mustache is unknown, however.}

I have written before about the awesomeness of Mr. Dillman, but for this post I want to share a hilarious story about his first meeting with Eugene O'Neill's wife. This is from his book, Are You Anybody?: An Actor's Life.

In 1955 I was cast in an off-Broadway play starring Louise Albritton that garnered critical approval. It was called Third Person. My performance caught the attention of Circle in the Square director Jose Quintero, who included me among the legion of actors he was interviewing and auditioning to play the autobiographical role of Edmund in the premiere of Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece, Long Day's Journey Into Night. In the end he decided to cast me, thereby creating the break that launched my career.

The day Jose told me the good news, he included a proviso. "You're going to have to meet O'Neill's widow," he said. "She has final say. If for any reason she doesn't care for you, I'm sorry, but that's it. We'll have to go with someone else."

"I understand."

"He telephoned her requesting a meeting later that day, and Mrs. O'Neill set a time, six o'clock. Jose asked me to meet him at a bar near her apartment a half hour earlier so we could map strategy.

In the bar I was so nervous I knocked back two doubles without coming up for a pretzel. It wasn't until I stood to leave that I realized I was snockered.

Standing outside her door I was consumed with self-loathing. You stupid idiot. The opportunity of a lifetime and you blow it. You don't belong to the human race. Whatever you do, do not insult this woman by opening your drunken trap. Just take the punishment you deserve and go home.

In the doorway stood the former actress Carlotta Monterey O'Neill. She was short but had a majestic carriage, her chiseled profile evidence she'd once been a great beauty. Jose performed directly to the deep armchair she indicated. It was in a corner of the room, where I slumped, sullen and glaring, mumbling brief responses only when spoken to.

Unexpectedly she laughed. "You know, Jose, I think this young man is an awfully good choice to play my Gene."

"I agree," Jose replied. "May I ask why you think so?"

"Because," she said, "like Gene, he doesn't say very much. And when he does, you can't understand him."

That's coolness-personified RIGHT THERE.

^Random photo of Bradford Dillman wearing a raincoat.

^This photo is just genuinely awesome. It's Bradford Dillman as a hipster.

Here's a tribute video I made for a him a few months ago, but never posted here. I never posted it here because this video is slightly pathetic. There's only clips from like 5 or 6 TV shows/films. It was just stuff I had sitting around the house and on DVD. SO, THERE IS A LOT OF ACTUAL BRILLIANCE MISSING.

Also: random clips decided to glitch and pause for no reason. -_- Pay no attention.

By my reckoning, in over four decades I've been personally responsible for the demise of well over a thousand people. Heck, at Jonestown alone my Kool-Aid took out over nine hundred, and I've blown up the Queen Mary twice.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

I am VERY happy to post this review from guest blogger Emm. She's on a hiatus from blogging, but has promised to give me a guest post now and then! And we, the editors here at ClassicForever, are quite pleased. ;-D

There were two ideas that came into my head after reading this review: One, I REALLY need to see this movie. And two, I REALLY need to go eat a nice dish of Ivar's fish and chips-- probably with a bowl of clam chowder. Seriously. I need to RIGHT NOW.

Enjoy!

Initially, I believed that Man Hunt was my first Fritz Lang film. I felt rather proud of this somehow, because everyone raves about his work, and usually his movies sound like films I'd be too chicken to watch. But a little investigation revealed that I'd previously seen The Return of Frank James. So, let's just say Man Hunt was my first CONSCIOUS Fritz Lang picture. Because, you know, I watch a lot of movies UN-consciously. ;D

The film begins with Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) silently slipping through the woods near Berchtesgaden – holding a rifle. On the edge of a small cliff, he proceeds to set his gun sight on none other than Hitler himself. Our hero pulls the trigger slowly and deliberately...

...and the gun clicks. Satisfied, he begins to creep away. But then Capt. Thorndike hesitates and places a single cartridge in the chamber, once again aiming directly at the Fuhrer. However, just before he would be able to fire, a German soldier overpowers him.

Thorndike is brought before Major Quive-Smith (George Sanders) soon after his capture. Sanders is his typically charming and urbane self as the fiendish, monocle-wearing German officer. He has plenty of diabolical schemes up his sleeve, but the main one involves trying to force Thorndike into signing a confession that states he attempted to assassinate Hitler with the knowledge and consent of the British government. Cue the psychological warfare.

Naturally, Thorndike refuses to comply, as it would badly discredit his country, in addition to being completely against his own personal principles. And just as naturally, that simply won't do for the Major, so he has our poor hunter/adventurer hero tortured within an inch of his life, and then thrown off a cliff – but not before a bit of breathtaking camera work involving some crazy amazing shadows. In one of these scenes, the audience never sees Walter Pidgeon directly, but only hears his voice and sees his shadow – and the face of his deliciously evil enemy. Trust me, 'tis brilliant.

Believing Thorndike dead, the suave villain decides to wait until morning to officially “discover” the body. BUT, Captain Thorndike did NOT die, and an exciting chase through the forest commences. (To be perfectly honest though, everything in this film is tense and heart-stopping.) Thorndike eventually makes his way to the coast and stows away on a Danish boat bound for Britain with the help of little Roddy McDowall.

Also aboard the ship is a loathsome spy of Major Quive-Smith, played by John Carradine, AKA Bob Ford, murderer of Tyrone Power's Jesse James. (Actually that only happened in an alternate universe – undoubtedly created somehow by Kate for the sole purpose of killing off Ty. ;D) ANYWAY, he's utterly and completely horrible again – but is in one of the very finest shots of the entire film, after which he is fittingly killed by Walter Pidgeon in the London Underground. YAY!!

But that joyous occasion actually takes place MUCH later in the film. Walter Pidgeon/Thorndike has to meet streetwalker Joan Bennett and her bad cockney accent, eat fish & chips for the first time in his life, purchase an ambiguous little arrow hatpin for the lady, and hide as best he can from murderous agents in London. Then he gets to kill Mr. Jones/Bob Ford/John Carradine!

I won't spoil it, but I will say I found the ending a trifle bizarre and I literally laughed aloud. It wasn't truly BAD, but I was genuinely surprised, and not in a THIS IS THE MOST BRILLIANT AND FANTASTIC TWIST kind of way. That being said, Man Hunt is a beautifully shot, well acted, and extremely thrilling...thriller.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Anyway. MARCH 2011. This was an interesting month. I had finals AND spring break AND the start of a spring quarter at college.

And I watched a remarkable amount of oddly cool films. PERFECTION.

March: 31 films overall/18 new

My Favorite New Film:

TIE! You Must Be Joking! and The Blob. Both utter brilliance. I also adored Bright Star.

I want to absolutely thank Kate for getting me a copy of YMBJ! It is a very difficult film to find and I never thought I would ever get to see it! Kate is so awesome! :')

You can also check out a tribute I made to Michael Callan's performance:

My Least Favorite New Film:

Palm Springs Weekend. For five reasons: 1) Troy Donahue. 2) Troy Donahue. 3) Troy Donahue. 4) Troy Donahue. 5) The rest of the cast (excluding Robert Conrad and Stephanie Powers). This was the last film I watched this month, AND IT WAS PATHETIC. I was particularly amused by the scene of Troy Donahue/Ty Hardin (I don't remember which annoying, bland, boring actor it was at that moment) threatening and beating up Robert Conrad's evil, spoiled rich kid. AS IF. In real life, Robert Conrad could have easily beat both of them up [probably at the same time ;-D].

I did however enjoy the super-creepy trailer. I even had to make a gif. Haha!

Runner-up: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. This one is in the category of: The Things I Watch For Sidney Poitier

Best Movie Title:

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. No words necessary.

EXCEPT, LET ME TAKE THIS MOMENT TO SAY THAT THE LAST 30 SECONDS OF THIS FILM ARE UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE.

That is all.

Best Cast:

Woman of Straw. Lollobrigida, Connery, and Sir Ralph?! What?! YES.

Runners up: The Stranger with Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young.Sergeants 3 for general Rat Pack awesomeness.Marriage On the Rocks for Frank, Nancy, Deborah, and Dean.

Worst Cast:

See: My Least Favorite New Film

Best Title Song:

The Blob's title song is beyond brilliance; beyond mere humanness.

MOST HORRIBLE DEATH THAT OCCURRED IN THE LAST FEW MINUTES OF A FILM:

I'm gonna go with Hell to Eternity and David Janssen. I watched the movie just for him and they killed him off just minutes from victory. -_-

Also, for those of you keeping track: this marks the second film I've watched this year solely for David Janssen-- which also happens to star Jeffrey Hunter as his war buddy. (January saw Man Trap where they played Korean War friends. HtE sees them as WWII buddies.) This also marks two quite unnecessary Jeffrey Hunter performances. THE THINGS I DO FOR MY BELOVED DR. RICHARD KIMBLE!

Runners up: Hombre.

***SPOILER ALERT!***
Of course I found Paul Newman's death quite saddening, BUT, I was even MORE depressed by the death of Frank Silvera's awesome Mexican bandit! UNFAIR!***END SPOILER ALERT!***